A Breath Away From Where You Are
by Tr3ble-Maker
Summary: College/Modern AU: Eponine is running from her old life, and Cosette is hoping to start a new one. But meeting through the windows might change the course they both originally had. Eposette, rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

**The window situation later in this story is based off of this picture: ** post/64913721053 **If you look at the picture the whole window thing will be a lot easier to imagine later.**

On her 18th birthday, Eponine announced to her parents that she was leaving, and that Gavroche and Azelma were coming with her. There was already a run-down apartment waiting for them in a town (which she refused to disclose the name of), and they'd be gone by the evening. Without waiting for a response, she turned to her siblings and calmly told them to get their things. As they scurried off, trying to avoid the torment soon to come, her father began trying to stutter out an argument in his drunken state of mind, and her mother, who was slightly more sober, started questioning Eponine's mental health. However, Eponine simply walked into the room she and her siblings all shared and continued trying to fit the rest of her bedding into the duffel. Her clothes were already wrapped up in grocery store plastic bags, stacked neatly in the corner.

It had been nights of endless deliberation for Eponine to move out. Staying behind with her abusive and alcoholic parents could have ended in her death. But on the other hand, moving out would mean having to pay rent, taxes, bills, and would make paying for her community college tuition a struggle. The decision really came when Eponine had come home from her part-time job as a bartender to watch, horrified, as her father backhanded Gavroche across the face. Even though her brother insisted that it was the first time, she yanked him into her room, calling Azelma in as well. Eponine had taken the abuse for them for years and had always been scared of what happened when she left the house, and her soon-to-be legal adulthood would provide them with exactly the escape she needed.

Next thing she knew, they were standing in front of their parents, loaded with bags, ready to go.

"If it doesn't turn out so right and dandy for you, don't you think you have any home here," her father slurred.

Strangely, up until then, Eponine had thought that maybe under the beer and bellowing, a small part of her father might love her. But watching him reach for another beer and waving them away, she realized how much of a fantasy that had been.

"Fuck you," she pronounced slowly, leading the sad procession out the door.

And that's how, at eight in the morning, three siblings ended up sitting in the back of a public bus with two armloads of bags each, trying to figure out a map of the next town over.

On her 18th birthday, Cosette was in the back of a shiny car with her father in the driver's seat, driving to a new apartment about an hour away.

"I figured it would be closer to your college, but not too far away from me," he explained, glancing at her quickly before looping around a corner.

Cosette gave a small laugh. "I could have driven back and forth or something, you know."

Her father shrugged. "Drive back on the weekends, if you please."

Although her father had been sitting on a mountain of money for a while now, she still felt guilty that he was going to pay for her apartment rental. As long as she paid taxes and bills and all, that is. But still, on top of her college tuition?

She had been leery about moving in the first place. This was the first time since her adoption that she and her father would be this far apart for a lengthy amount of time. However, even though she had suggested it, she really couldn't drive for an hour to college in the morning and then drive back after classes. Yes, it really was the best solution, she had convinced herself

And that's how, at ten in the morning, she was sitting with the seat warmers turned on, luggage cases in the backseat, wondering exactly how she would survive.

Azelma was first to step into the apartment, and exclaimed in surprise, "Hey, it's not that bad, actually!"

"Thanks," Eponine muttered sarcastically, finally letting go of her handful of grocery bags. Her fingers ached where the plastic had dug into her skin.

The walls were at least a clean white, and the hardwood floors weren't too badly scratched. The article online had said that it had been rented to a few other people, and she had immediately thought that it was code for "falling apart at the seams". But the sparse amount of furniture looked pretty clean, the kitchen appliances were all in good health, and there was not an empty bottle of wine in sight.

A quick survey of the place proved fairly decent: the aforementioned kitchen, a small living room with a pale blue couch, two bedrooms already outfitted with bedframes and mattresses, a bathroom, and a large walk-in closet.

"Two bedrooms…" Gavroche trailed off.

At this point, Eponine couldn't fathom the idea of them being ungrateful for this. "And?"

"There are three of us," he stated, as if pointing out an obvious flaw.

Eponine was tempted to wring his neck, but took a deep breath and pointed at the walk-in closet. "You want your own bed? The closet's free."

She had expected him to recoil at this, but her brother's face lit up. "Yeah! That would be so cool!"

_Tell me how you like that idea in two years, _she thought. "Whatever. If you can make a bed and take out the shelves, you can have your own room."

He threw open the door and began clanging around with the screws of the wire shelves immediately.

Azelma pointed between the doors of the actual bedrooms. "Which one do you want?"

Satisfied that somebody was finally showing an ounce of thankfulness, Eponine pointed at the door on the left.

"Okay," Azelma whispered, edging towards the right door.

For a split second, Eponine felt a tangible ball of guilt wedged in her chest. Although they were on the road to escaping the horror that was their life, she_ had _uprooted her 15 year old sister and 12 year old brother from the only life they'd known without really asking. It was likely that Azelma would never see her friends again, and might have trouble making new ones as well.

"Hey," she interjected, tapping Azelma's shoulder.

When her sister turned around, she shoved her hands in her pockets. "I'm…sorry, that this had to happen."

Azelma shrugged, lightly kicking a grocery bag.

Sighing, Eponine edged the door to her room open.

"Ta-da!" Cosette's father sang, throwing open the door to the apartment, two of her bags in hand.

She laughed, looking at the already furnished rooms. The constricting one-bedroom she had pictured in her head barely matched the clean, modern designs and smell of fresh paint that was displayed for her now.

"I didn't know it came already furnished," she remarked, sliding a hand across the kitchen table.

"It did! I got it for a bargain, too," her father explained, setting her bags down on the kitchen counter. "Well, I hope you enjoy it."

She turned slowly. "You're already leaving?"

"Well…I've got a meeting at three, and I would help you set up, but…I'll come this weekend!" he decided, attempting to make up for it.

"Oh, yeah, definitely," Cosette said. She plastered on a smile, but she felt the happiness that had gathered in her chest plummet out.

"So," he sighed, "good luck, sweetheart. Call me if you need anything."

He pulled her into a hug, and Cosette squeezed her eyes tight, tight, tight, telling herself that she could only cry after he was gone.

"Yeah. I love you," she managed to get out.

"I love you too," and just like that, he was out the door.

The minute it shut, she felt her breath start to catch and her throat start to swell. But, no, she decided, she was not a little girl anymore. She had an apartment, responsibilities, and some unpacking to do, and she would not put it off because she missed her father, when in reality, he probably hadn't even left the building yet.

Deciding to start with the bedroom, she edged the door open.

**Please R/R!**


	2. Chapter 2

The room Eponine had chosen turned out to be the smaller one. There was honestly nothing exciting about it; same white walls, same floor, but this time with a blanketless bed tucked in the corner under a window. A quick glance out the window showed her that there was an identical window across the way, which was only a distance of around ten feet. Another glance proved that it was exactly parallel to her window, and whatever creep owned the place could stare at her as much as he or she pleased, due to the fact that the window had no blinds or curtains.

Supposing that she could always tack up a sheet or something, she worked the blankets out of her duffle bag and laid them on the bed. Of course, she had never had the standard matching-sheets-and-comforter system; more like blankets she found lying around the house stacked on top of each other until she was relatively warm.

Still, she could remember walking past a furniture store once and seeing a fully made bed through the glass. It was a huge double bed, technically for adults, but even at age 12, her more childlike had been enthralled by it. Immediately going into the store, she had stroked the down comforter and stared at the five pillows. Five pillows? She had never seen five pillows on one bed. It was so impossibly enchanting that she began to climb onto it, wondering if the employees would just let her take a quick nap. It proved to be a false statement, because a person in a green apron came over and asked if her parents were here and interested in buying the bed.

She didn't know how to say that she was wandering a furniture store alone, so she simply ran out with no answer.

Maybe if she had enough extra money, she could track down that comforter and get it for her bed. It would look nice in this room, with all of the white.

The dream was cut short as an image of a stack of bills flew into her mind, and she threw the same old blankets onto the bed.

Cosette was confused when she saw her bedroom. Maybe not confused, but definitely surprised. As opposed to the rest of the house, the walls in this room were a pale green, a shade she had never thought that she would like. It was refreshing to see some color, though, and her bedding wouldn't clash, but the color was oddly familiar.

The bed was already tucked under the window, which thankfully had curtain rods so her curtains would have some use. A similar window was in the next row of houses about ten feet away, and she could see some movement inside. _Curtains first, then, _she decided.

Pulling the rosebud fabric out of her bag, she tried to examine the green on the walls a bit more. There was a faint idea whispering in the back of her head, but she just couldn't place it.

She had just barely pulled the curtains onto the rod when it hit her all at once: she had helped her father paint his room this exact color.

He had always liked green; he wore green, drove a green car, etc, etc. One day he had come into her room with three cans of paint and two rollers, and announced that they were going to paint his room.

She was 12 and in charge of mixing the paint, which was named Celery, as her father covered everything in drop cloths. Without waiting for his consent, she poured the paint right into the tin all at once, causing a bit of it to splash out and form a long, thin drip on the floor. Her father's back was still turned, so she tried to wipe it up from the carpet with the hem of her shirt, but he reached to get the paint and caught sight of it.

Worried that he would be incredibly angry, Cosette had frozen, the fabric of her shirt still bunched in her hand, but all he said was "I think it adds character to the room, don't you?"

Laughing in relief, the celery paint was coated onto the walls in less than a day, and the celery stain had dried into the carpet, still there to this day.

Honestly, Cosette hadn't realized how empty her apartment sounded. Every step she made echoed through silence. Did anybody even live in the building? Even if they did, they could be bitter, cold people that would never care about filling a void in her life. There was nobody here who cared about her, or who even knew her name. Never before in her life, not since before she was adopted, had she felt so incredibly alone, isolated.

Thoughts of being mature were wiped from her mind as she sat on the bed in front of the window. Instead of fighting the tears off this time, she let them go, letting them fall onto her round cheeks like beads of glass.

Eponine was halfway through getting her sparse amount of clothing into the closet when she heard a sniffling sound and paused to press her ear to the door. No, it wasn't Gavroche or Azelma, she decided. It seemed to be coming from the other half of her room, the window half.

She leaned down to peer out, and finally caught sight of her new neighbor. There was a blonde girl at the window, seated on her own bed, practically whimpering in pain. Tears tinged black from what Eponine assumed was mascara slid down her porcelain cheeks.

Half of her was curious, but the other half of her dismissed the girl with scoff and went back to folding clothes. It was probably some lovers' quarrel anyways; girls like that always seemed to be dealing with them.

The sniffling, however, gradually became more and more pronounced until Eponine finally couldn't stand it. At this point, she would stab an ice pick in her eye to stop the constant noise.

She probably should have been a bit gentler, looking back, but she threw up the window and rested her elbows on the ledge. "Hey," she said.

The blonde didn't look up.

"HEY," Eponine barked, rolling her eyes.

She managed to startle the girl, who ran her fingers under her eyes and sat up straight. "What, what?" she stuttered, squeaking her window open wider.

"What are you crying about?" Eponine asked.

"Huh?"

"I mean, I don't care, but you're awfully loud. " _Hm, that's a bit harsh. _ "It's a bit depressing, 's all."

The girl, obviously a bit taken aback, sat up straighter. "Why do you care?"

Eponine fought the sarcasm creeping into her voice. "I already said I don't. Now what's your name?"

"Cosette."

"Right. Well, Cosette, imagine you're me," Eponine started. "I'm pretty new here, and I'd like to work out all the logistics. It's pretty important to know if you'll be doing this a lot, because my patience for it is, like, zero."

Cosette drew back a bit. "If you really need to know, I'm new too and it's just…." She trailed off, then came back with a burst of confidence. "Well, why are you so rude?"

"Genetics," Eponine tossed back. "And you still haven't told me the problem here. Is it about a boy? For the love of all that is good and holy, tell me it's not about a boy."

"It's not a boy," Cosette huffed indignantly.

"Thank God for small miracles. Friend troubles?"

"No."

"Even more miracles," Eponine remarked, not bothering to put away the sarcasm anymore. "Well, Cosette, dearest neighbor, we can talk about this later, assuming you're free."

Cosette looked at her like she was mad. "And where are you going?"

"Hell."

"I mean now."

Eponine sighed. "I've got to unpack. My sister and brother are waiting."

The girl nodded looking back down. "And your parents?" she said in a slightly quieter voice.

There was a digging sensation in Eponine's chest, but she squeezed out, "They're not here."

Cosette looked at her with new interest. "Wait, how old are you?"

Feeling as if she'd shared too much, Eponine drew away from the window. "Bye, blondie."

"Wait!" Cosette yelled out. "What's your name?"

Eponine laughed. "Feeling nosy, are we?"

Blushing, Cosette replied, "You asked mine."

"You drive a hard bargain," Eponine drawled, delighting in making Cosette blush more. "But that's information that I'm not so free with giving out. Outside circumstances. You understand. "

Before any more questions could be exchanged, she waved goodbye to the blonde and closed the window, just in case the crying started up again.

But all Cosette was concerned about now was what kind of criminal freak she had moved in next to.

**Please R/R!**


	3. Chapter 3

Just as the mysterious brunette closed her window, Cosette's laptop let out a pinging sound from the depths of her suitcase. Quickly unhooking the clasps, she pushed a stack of clothes to the side and opened it onto her lap, reading that her friend from back home, Courfeyrac, was videochatting her.

At first she hesitated. Wherever Courfeyrac was, you could guarantee Marius would be, and vice versa. Even though their breakup had been a unanimous decision, with both of them going to college, she still didn't want to see him just yet.

Deciding to risk it, she clicked "Accept", and Courfeyrac's overexcited, child-like smile appeared on her screen. Before she could get a word in, he started babbling uncontrollably. "Cosette! Thank GOD it worked. Something went wrong with the webcam. He's right over there. Joly!" Courfeyrac waved wildly over at his friend, who was sitting in a corner a good distance away from their camera. Joly murmured something that apparently constituted as a hello, because Courfeyrac turned back. "Last time I agree to room with him, really. He's pretty boring."

"Maybe you're just too annoying," Joly called over, flipping through a textbook. "Cosette, wherever you're living, take me with you."

"Ha! No. We agreed, three people splitting the rent. You, me, and…" Courfeyrac turned back to face his webcam, blocking Joly from view. "Speaking of which, how are you and Pontmercy? Hm?"

Not sure whether she should be glad that she was acknowledged or distressed that The Topic had been brought up, Cosette sighed and shrugged, adjusting her laptop on her knees. "We haven't really talked since I left."

Courfeyrac's pitch-black curls bobbed as he nodded, and he leaned closer to the screen. "Where are you? Is that your apartment?"

She backed away from the screen a bit and tilted her laptop to a few angles in the room. "Yeah. It's alright, I guess."

"Not rooming with anybody?"

The pit in Cosette's stomach opened a bit wider. "Not yet."

A sudden crash sounded from outside her window, and Cosette nearly jumped ten feet into the air. Momentarily abandoning the laptop on her bed, she ran to the window and looked out onto the street. At first she was confused, but then she saw movement inside the window of the same odd girl that had just been talking to her and sighed, turning back to her screen.

"What was that?" Courfeyrac asked, pausing to take a drink from a mug.

"My neighbor," Cosette groaned.

"Well, you seem to think she's lovely."

"If a girl you'd never spoken to leaned out her window and started questioning all of your life choices, would you make a great first impression?" Cosette asked sarcastically.

Courfeyrac shrugged. "Depends. So she's…living outside your window?"

"In the building across, actually. Here, I'll show you." She picked up the laptop, holding it so that it faced away from her, and went to the window, letting Courfeyrac stare out.

"Wow," she heard him say, "That's a little too close for comfort. Have you got any curtains?"

"I'm going to hang them up soon," she informed him. "But honestly…"

"HEY!"

Cosette nearly dropped her laptop. She managed to get a grip on it and shove it onto the desk near her, trying to turn down the volume so Courfeyrac's hysterical laughter wasn't so prominent.

The girl had seen them.

"I know you're there," Cosette heard from outside her window.

Nervous, she edged out, pretending like she had just noticed her for the first time. "What?"

In the slightly darker light, the girl looked even more threatening. "You were aiming a laptop out your window at me, that's what. Are you trying to get pictures of me or something?"

"No!" Cosette assured her. The girl remained unconvinced. "I wasn't doing anything invasive."

"Then what were you doing?"

"…Nothing?"

The girl squared her shoulders, leaning out on the window frame. "So you're not doing anything 'invasive', as you put it, but you can't tell me what? Should I be calling the authorities?"

"NO! No." Cosette yelled out. Courfeyrac was still dissolving in hysterics. "I…had some friends on video chat, and I was showing them the view out my window. I didn't realize you were there," she lied quickly.

The girl seemed to believe it, until she laughed. "You're a pretty good liar."

"What? It's not a-"

"Sadly for you, I'm a pretty good lie detector. So keep your friends out of my sight, alright, blondie?" she asked in a voice honey-coated in sarcasm. Without waiting for an answer, she slipped away into the secrets of her own room, slamming her window.

Breathing heavily, Cosette turned back to her laptop, where even Joly was laughing now. "Shut up, she's terrifying."

Courfeyrac's breaths became shallow as he tried to stop laughing. "'I'm showing them the view out my window!' Priceless. Absolutely priceless."

Cosette huffed. "You two are no help whatsoever."

"Do you even know her name?"

"No! That's the bad part! If I knew her name, I could threaten HER with calling the authorities," she sighed. "Anyways, I should go if I'm ever going to finish unpacking today."

"Bye, _blondie,_" Courfeyrac teased, adapting the girl's nickname for her.

Cosette slammed her laptop closed with a final death glare into the camera.

**Please R/R! Also, if you know anybody who likes Eposette, it would be great if you could recommend this story to them! There aren't a lot of people who read stuff for this ship on this website. Be sure to message me if you do, I'll be sure to thank you somehow!**


	4. Chapter 4

Eponine slammed her window closed. Honestly, the nerve of her neighbor.

But there were more prominent issues at hand. Eponine stamped across the shattered glass splayed on her floor, screeching out angrily for her sister. "Azel-MA! Get back here."

"Why should I?" came the equally loud and angry voice from behind the locked door of the other bedroom.

Eponine shuddered with anger, slamming her fist onto her sister's door as the glass kept crunching beneath her feet. "You INGRATE!" she shrieked. "You selfish little ingrate. You think that I want to be here? But I couldn't give less of a shit, as long as I'm away from our parents! You could be getting slapped by Father right now, or you could be here, where you actually might live past twenty. And you want to go BACK?"

Trying to control her hyperventilating lungs, she placed her hands on the door frame and steadied herself. If Cosette hadn't been filming her or whatever, Azelma might have been murdered just moments ago.

The words her younger sister had spat played over and over in her head. "_I want to go back."_

Go back? After everything she had done? She could have just as well left her siblings sitting on the couch and bought an apartment all to herself, ask some newfound college friends to move in with her, but instead she was the freak toting two ragtag teenagers along everywhere she went. And Azelma wanted to go back.

After Azelma's only excuse came out ("_You could have asked me first"_), Eponine absolutely boiled over. Her glass of water was flung at the door as hard as she could, stopping Azelma from walking out. And then Cosette and her "friends on video chat" had distracted her, and her sister had escaped.

"Well, damn it, Azelma, you're not going back, so if you're in there packing, I swear to God…"

"Don't pretend this isn't all about you, Eppy," Azelma interrupted.

Eponine flinched at the use of her father's patronizing nickname for her. "Excuse me, but Father…"

"Scares the shit out of you," Azelma finished. "And you don't want to have to deal with him yourself. So instead you dragged us all out here so we can play some glorified game of cat and mouse for the rest of our lives? And don't pretend like you're doing this for OUR own good. This is what YOU want. You've wanted to get yourself out ever since Marius started dating that girl from a few towns over."

That was it. That was the nerve that Azelma had to strike. It was like a tucked away bottle of poison, only to be used when absolutely necessary. But one sip, and it could bring the strongest person alive to collapse into unconsciousness.

Marius had never even introduced her, Eponine remembered. He had just met her on the street as usual, conversed with her as usual, done everything as usual. Casually as ever, he said he would have to take a rain check on their usual Friday night plans of watching a movie or two with Courfeyrac and Joly. He had a date that night with a girl he had met in his French class. Simple as that, really.

And then he was gone, running into the book store he worked at without as much as a goodbye.

Eponine didn't even get a chance to ask what the girl's name was.

She could hear Azelma creeping back to her door, probably to apologize for using the unforgivable curse. "Eponine?" Her voice was gentle, the kind of voice one would use to lead a lamb to the slaughterhouse.

Eponine was silent. Her chest had caved in and become a hollow, empty pit. There were no inhales, no exhales, and no signs of life about her. All she could think of was standing alone on the pavement, watching him run into the store, with all of her questions still hanging on her lips. _Were you the one to ask her out? Why didn't you say goodbye? If you wanted love, why did you never turn to me?_

Foolishness, she eventually realized. All of those times he had sat next to her for the movie nights, the time that she had finally opened up about her life at home, even the time that he let her siblings sleep at his house on a night where her father's gang was getting particularly dangerous. It was all friendship. Any signs of love had been conjured up in her head, a fantasy to distract from the bleak, grey world she lived in.

One of Azelma's eyes peeked out around the edge of the door to make sure that the coast was clear, and she pushed the door open further to see her sister staring down at the broken glass, a small hiccup pushing its way up her throat.

"Eponine, I-"

"Fuck you."

A shelf creaked inside Gavroche's closet-room.

Straightening up but not raising her gaze, Eponine swallowed the memory down. "If you want to leave…" she took a shaky breath, "then the door is right over there."

The toe of her boot scuffed the floor, sending up a sparkling cloud of glass dust.

"You've at least got to have the good dignity to say goodbye, though," she added on.

"I'm not going to leave," Azelma started.

But Eponine was already walking back to her room, gently shutting the door behind her.

Later, the glass was swept up using old shirts and napkins. Gavroche tiptoed around any topic close to the fight as they all ate cans of chicken noodle soup. Azelma commented that she would clean the oven tomorrow, because it was looking dirty and would make all of their food taste burnt.

Eponine said nothing.

**Please R/R!**


	5. Chapter 5

Cosette had pulled up a chair in front of her window, sitting patiently and waiting for her mystery neighbor to show her face. The failed video chat with Courfeyrac had stirred up newfound anger inside of her, and if there was one word that people used to describe her, it was determined. The fire in her eyes was diminishing, though, and the longer she sat at the window, the more ways she imagined the mystery girl murdering her on sight. Flinging knives out of her window was a reoccurring picture – for whatever reason, she looked the part. From the little Cosette had captured of her, she had made her out to be a girl who could pull a cloak of charm over her victims and stab them in the back when she had captured their full attention.

Rustling in the apartment across the way stirred her attention, and she flung some balled-up notebook paper at the window to make a light tap. Surprisingly, she realized, their windows were close enough that the light material actually carried itself the whole way, and landed on a stretch of roof slightly below Cosette's and level with the possible-knife-thrower.

_Speak of the devil, _she thought as the aforementioned girl angrily stuck her head out of the window, glaring up at hers. "And now you want to throw shit at me?"

"Nope. I just want some answers."

The girl shook her head, matted ginger-brown hair flinging loose from behind her ears. "Not in the mood, blondie," she muttered, and Cosette could no longer detect the lilting tease in her voice that had been so apparent earlier.

Deciding that she could dodge any precariously thrown instruments of torture, Cosette yelled back down before she could duck back in, "Screw your mood and tell me who you are."

The girl froze, and Cosette exhaled quickly and bit down on her tongue. A building tightness in her chest obstructed her throat, and she almost started to worry that she had gone too far before the girl began to laugh. It was a coarse, unforgiving sound, but it was still a laugh.

"Didn't think you were capable of that," the girl admitted. "Alright, you want to be friends? Fine. But I'm warning you, I don't make or keep friends all that easily." Seeing Cosette's satisfactory nod, she went on. "My name's Eponine, and we're not on last-name basis yet, so don't ask. I'm living here with my brother and sister, and if you say one word about parents I'll close this damn window and never open it again."

"Eponine," she said out loud, turning the name over and over in her head. "That's funny, do you know a Marius?"

The look on her face, that mixture of deer-in-the-headlights and pain stricken agony, gave it away before she had said anything. Cosette had not expected the reaction, and she started to ask her why it had come about before Eponine slowly raised her gaze with such a harsh edge that she was tempted to back away. "How…do YOU know Marius Pontmercy."

It was not a question, she could sense that much, but Cosette still felt like she had to answer it anyways. "Marius and I are…well, we were dating, but when I got accepted to…"

"What's your name?" Eponine cut her off, a strange growling sound creeping into her throat.

"…Cosette?"

Eponine ran her tounge across her lips and looked out onto the stretch of roof where the paper was still idly biding its time. "He never told me your name."

When she looked up again, Cosette was unprepared for the expression in her swimming brown eyes. The pain in them was so real, so tangible, that Cosette felt it with her; every tingling drop of anger-washed sorrow was shared between the two of them. And while she knew nothing of Eponine's backstory, it was clear she had loved him. Every inch of her face had heartbreak tattooed across it. She immediately felt remorse for ever telling her, and suddenly wanted to take it back and lie, say that she was joking, say that they were just friends. She wanted to climb out on the roof and tell Eponine that she was lying, even though that itself would be a lie.

"I should have known," Eponine sighed, faking a bright vocal tone. "You're exactly his type, aren't you?" Without waiting for her to answer, she tumbled on. "So why did you break up, then?"

Cosette found that she had forgotten to breathe, and took in a gulp of air before continuing. "We were going to different colleges…we…he thought it would be best." She tried her best to make it sound like Marius hadn't wanted to be with her anymore, that he wanted nothing to do with her, knowing that it would make the Eponine happy.

However, Eponine just shrugged. "Like I said, you might be a good liar, but I'm a better lie detector. Word of advice, Cosette. Don't lie to me. Everything will go so much faster that way."

She expected Eponine to pull back into her room then, but she leaned her elbows on the windowpane and brushed another chunk of hair out of her eyes. "So you're in school, I assume." When she looked up at Cosette's confused gaze, she rolled her eyes and continued. "You're rich. You're my age."

"You don't know if I'm rich," Cosette cut off indignantly.

Eponine smirked up at her, and she felt strangely infuriated by the brunette's mocking gaze that matched her voice and laugh so well. "Don't I? Tell me, then, what's that necklace made of?"

As her hand fluttered up to her neck, Cosette stared down at the rose-gold chain with a garnet stone hanging from it. Knowing very well that it was real, she stammered out, "It's fake…"

"Darling," Eponine spat, "I thought that we agreed not to lie. And I can spot if a gemstone is real or fake from a mile away. Father's genes, you know." Cosette decided against further questioning the fleeting mention of her parents and tucked the necklace into her shirt. "Anyways," Eponine continued, "that necklace could feed me and my siblings for three weeks, I'd bet."

Strangely embarrassed, Cosette felt compelled to at least offer some help. Eponine was obviously alone in this world, and her father had always told her to give whatever she could. "You can take it," she decided, unhooking the necklace clasp behind her neck and preparing to throw it down onto the stretch of roof.

She had almost let go of the chain before Eponine's laugh came again, but with a much darker undertone, like a wolf slinking between trees in the pitch-black night. "One last rule, Cosette. I'm not a charity case, and I refuse to be treated like one. If I wanted that necklace, I would have already taken it from you."

Cosette's hand hung dejectedly out of the window, the necklace glinting in the nearly gone-sunlight. "Follow those rules," Eponine continued, "and we'll get along just fine."

A large, ashen grey piece of roof shingle smacked brutally against Cosette's limp hand, and in surprise, she let go of the necklace, which tumbled a few short feet down to the barren stretch of roof, where Eponine expertly crawled out through her window and snatched the necklace up. Her eyes, now shining brightly with a mischievous glint, looked up to meet Cosette's in the dark of the night. In her hand, Cosette noticed, was another piece of the roof shingle.

"Like I said, if I wanted the necklace, I would have just taken it," Eponine smiled at the shocked face above her.

Before Cosette could even fathom that it was Eponine who threw the shingle, the girl stood up on the roof in front of her. Her head came to about a foot below her windowpane, and she stretched her hand up and presented the necklace to her. "I also said I'm not a charity case, so take it before you call the cops or something."

Staring down in bewildered amazement, Cosette gingerly took the necklace from Eponine's palm, feeling her hand's surprising softness. Looking down at the necklace, she whispered, "I wouldn't have called the cops, Eponine."

But when she looked back up, Eponine's window was shut and she was gone from sight, like a shadow that simply faded away when the sun went below the horizon.

**Please R /R!**


	6. Chapter 6

A fuzzy beep from an alarm clock scrounged up from a dumpster woke Eponine up the next morning, and she gingerly touched the chaffed skin on her hands from digging out that roof shingle. Her mind still foggy from sleep, she looked around and smiled satisfactorily. She was alive, so Cosette must not have called the cops, she supposed.

Stumbling out of bed, she groped around for the doorknob and opened it, revealing Gavroche. "Where's…the food?" he asked cautiously.

Eponine's stomach dropped, realizing exactly what she had forgotten at her father's house. She could only smuggle so much food out of her parent's cabinets, not to mention that said cabinets were pretty bare themselves. Their parents liked to have food for themselves and simply ignore the pairs of malnourished eyes that would peek through the door while they ate. For a week or two, Eponine had been getting what she could – a can of soup here, a packet of frozen green beans there – but as it became increasingly difficult to conceal the food in their rooms, she stopped collecting it.

"Uhhh…" she stalled, going into her suitcase and pulling out vegetable soup. She handed it to her brother. "I'll get actual breakfast food after classes today," she compensated as he walked back down the hall to the kitchen.

Reminding herself of classes, she glanced at the clock, which read 8:15. Her first class today was at 9, so she set about to getting ready as she heard Gavroche and Azelma murmuring in the hallway.

"Yes, it's soup, but who cares? She's going out to get other stuff later." Gavroche whispered.

"Where's she going to get the money from?" came Azelma's bitter response, causing Eponine to bristle as she pulled a burgundy shirt over her head.

"She had a job, you know. I'm assuming she'll get another. And why don't you get a job, huh?" A pause followed. "Don't tell me it never crossed your mind-"

"It crossed my mind," Azelma spat back. "And I'm fifteen, not to mention without a technical legal guardian. Nobody's going to hire me."

"So you put down our parent's names."

"It's not that simple, Gavroche!" Azelma hissed, and Eponine pressed her ear against the crack in the door. "It's pretty obvious that Eponine doesn't want any of us to be found. And you know, that's probably best. Father would kill her and beat the living shit out of us, and we can't have people asking questions about our parents. I can't put my name on legal documents that trace back to their names with our address on them; it would be like begging for them to come find us."

Eponine allowed herself to exhale in the silence that followed. She had never realized just how much of the situation Azelma actually understood. When they were growing up, she had always assumed that Azelma was blind to some of it, or that she didn't see just how deep the venom ran through the family. But Azelma brought up a valid point – would they be able to apply for jobs and still use their real names? Would their parents be notified somehow?

"What about babysitting?" Gavroche suggested lamely.

"You idiot," Azelma exhaled. "I can hear it now. 'Oh, do we know your parents, honey?' Yeah, probably not. My mum and dad run a small hotel in which they run a bloody crime ring to steal from the guests, and they're usually too drunk to properly function. But hey, you might know my sister who brought us to this apartment to hide out the rest of our lives like we're running from the law or some shit."

Eponine wasn't even insulted by this, because it was all true. She herself was still young enough to get asked about her parents. It dawned on her that she would need to come up with a story for everybody to follow, just in order to live on a day-to-day basis.

She strolled out of her room to find that Azelma and Gavroche had left the hallway, and were in the kitchen trying to work the lid off of the soup can with a can opener.

"Alright," she started, slapping her hand down on the counter, drawing both of their attentions from their breakfast. "Here's our cover: I'm going to the university. I live here with one of my friends. You two," she continued, gesturing at their concentrating faces, "visit me very frequently and sometimes stay the night. Our parents are dead. Car crash. You two live with your aunt and uncle and cousin."

"What if people ask who our aunt and uncle are?" Gavroche interrupted.

"Joseph and Faith," Eponine answered dryly. "Now, if we stray from the story and people get mixed ideas, we're all screwed. And finally," she paused to stress the importance. "Do NOT invite friends over. Tell them the dining room is being repainted, that you're grounded, I don't care. Do not accept a ride from a friend. Be vague about where you live. Don't even tell them the building. Nobody. Comes. In."

They nodded, and Eponine could see the barely concealed fear in their eyes.

"I'm going to go to class." She announced, walking back down the hallway. "How many friends do I live with?"

"One," came the answer.

"Wonderful," she called back, grabbing her bag off of her floor and fiddling with the door so it would lock behind her. "We'll go enroll you in school when I get back."

It felt strangely refreshing to go outside of the building onto the street. There would be nobody here who wanted to know where she was, or where she had come from. Everybody was so absorbed with themselves that their gaze went right through Eponine, and she loved it. She was just Eponine Thenardier, and there was nobody to hide it from.

When she walked past the other building, however, a voice sounded behind her. "Hi, Eponine!"

She sucked in a breath and slowly turned, but exhaled when she saw that it was Cosette. "Oh, hey blondie." A quick glance at her neck showed that she had abandoned her fancy little necklace for today, at least.

"Are you going to class?"

"Yeah, yeah I am," she stuttered, relieved of her paranoia. Allowing herself a small smile, she forced out some conversation. "What do you have?"

"Psychology lecture," she recited.

"Me too."

"Oh, thank god," Cosette sighed, "I thought I would be alone in my first class."

Eponine eyed her. She seemed to have dropped the slightly frightened, angry persona that she had assumed last night, and now exactly fit the mold she had created for Marius's girlfriend: bubbly, friendly, conversational, and nice hair. But she wasn't all that stuck-up, Eponine had noticed. Maybe it had just been the jealousy talking. Still, Eponine knew it would take her a while before she could wash the "Marius's girlfriend" title from her brain, even though Cosette had said that they had broken up. That he had broken up with her, nonetheless, although it was doubtful. Marius had been so completely enamored with her, Eponine could tell without ever meeting the girl…

_Stop, _she decided. It was better for everybody if she washed Marius completely from her mind.

They reached the gates of the university. "Maybe after class we can go grab some coffee or something?"

Eponine pretended to think, but her nerves pulsed. "I can't, my brother and sister are coming over from my aunt and uncle's house."

"Your aunt and uncle's house?"

"Yeah," Eponine gave a shaky sigh, trying her best to look sad. "My parents died in a car crash."

Cosette drew in a short breath. "Oh my goodness, Eponine, I'm so sorry."

Even though it was all a lie, Eponine felt embarrassed from her pity. "Don't be. It was a long time ago. My brother doesn't even remember them." She tried to make a mental note. If her brother didn't remember, that would mean that he was a baby. If he was a baby, then Azelma would have been three and she would have been six. She would have to relay them that portion of the story when she got back.

Still, there was something about the way Cosette nodded at her that made Eponine want to cave in, because she could tell that she felt her 'pain'.

And while it had never happened before, Eponine felt terrible for it.

**Please R/R!**


	7. Chapter 7

Cosette clutched the coffee cup against the slight bite of the wind, her brown boots making dull clicks on the pavement. She had tried to concentrate on her class, she really had, but her mind was consumed with bitter secondhand grief for Eponine. Not only that, but her siblings? Traveling from their aunt and uncle's to their sister's all the time had to be hard on the poor children. For a split second, she wondered how old they were now. Maybe she could meet them when they came over to Eponine's tonight-

_Stop, _she realized. They were barely friends, more like two people who had been thrust haphazardly together. She couldn't just "meet Eponine's siblings" after a day of knowing her.

Her thoughts were cut short as her toe caught on a passerby's leg, sending her textbook and her half-finished latte out of her arms and causing her to stumble. The people around her paid no heed, and instead tried to maneuver around the student sent sprawling on the sidewalk.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Here, let me just get your book-"

She could feel her chest constrict as she recognized the owner of the voice immediately. "It's fine, I'll get it," she gasped, trying to lower her voice an octave. Grabbing up her book and abandoning her coffee, she began her way back down the street a quicker pace, but there was no such luck.

"Cosette?"

She unconsciously stopped, but wished she had just kept walking. Turning slowly, she prepared herself for whatever somber and semi-hopeful expression she knew resided on the face of-

"Marius."

He looked at her in disbelief. "I haven't seen you for…how are you?"

Spindly threads of embarrassment laced through her like cyanide. "I'm…well," she stammered. Then, as an afterthought, "And you? Are you…well?"

"Yes," he answered a bit too quickly. "What are you doing here?"

Clutching the textbook a bit more tightly, she looked at her apartment building down the road. "I'm going to the university. And I got an apartment."

He nodded, following her gaze. "I, I just came to…meet a friend," he explained, pointing into the coffee store she had just come out of. "He's getting drinks."

Cosette pursed her lips and attempted a small nod. She wanted to do anything but meet his eyes, not knowing what feelings resided there for her. Anger? Hurt? A small wrench in her stomach reminded her that those feelings would be completely subsequent to what she had done.

"_Cosette, I don't understand," he whispered, trying to take her hand across the table, but she withdrew herself from him and placed her hands in her lap._

"_I'm going to college, you're going to college. I don't think that it would be completely fair for either of us to go four years waiting for each other," she explained again, willing the tear that was about to fall to disappear._

_Marius looked genuinely confused, and it killed her. It killed her to wait for his next sentence, it killed her to watch his lip twitch nervously, everything just sent another mind-numbingly painful stab through her. "But we don't have to wait. We can see each other on weekends, and during the summer, and-"_

"_Marius…"_

"_You're acting like this is going to change everything."_

"_That's the point!" she snapped back a little too loudly, drawing stares from nearby café customers. Lowering her voice, she continued, "This _is_ going to change everything. I don't want you to be tied down to me when there are so many opportunities for you."_

"_But it doesn't have to-"_

"_You're not listening to me," she tried interrupting._

"_It won't feel like I'm tied down…"_

"_And what about me?" she blurted out. "What if I don't want to be tied down because there are other opportunities for me?"_

_In one sentence, she could see the immediate effect. The confusion and protest on his countenance shattered and showed nothing but the wounds she had inflicted upon him. Cosette could feel her lips twitch, but she sealed them closed. If this was how it had to be done, with Marius's last memory of her being a ruthless glare in her eyes, then this was how she had to do it._

"_I'm sorry, then," he began slowly, and she braced herself for the impact, "for being a burden to you."_

_And with that, he put his mug down, peeled his jacket from the back of the chair, and slowly walked out, the bell on the door jingling to signal his leaving._

_Her eyes threatened to spill over, but she pulled every muscle she could to stabilize it. A bouncy waitress came over and asked if she would like anything more, but she shook her head and managed to get out, "Can I just get the check, please?" without her voice wavering._

_She wished she had at least met his eyes when she said it. If she could go back just a few seconds and look at him, she would._

"Well, I really should be going back, I've got a paper," she lied, trying to turn around.

"Wait," came the voice behind her. Footsteps brought him back in front of her, and she stole a glance up at him. The mask that covered the same damp memory she had relayed was flimsy and hardly convincing. "I can ask Courfeyrac to get an extra coffee. Maybe we could…"

"I've really got to be going."

"Now?"

It was the same relentlessness that he had shown in the café, always needing to push her the extra inch. So although she knew that he in no way deserved it, she looked him straight in the eye. "I've got plans. With Eponine."

She turned and quickly walked away, ignoring the inquisitives that came behind her. "Eponine? You know Eponine? Is she here?" Her boots had stepped in her spilled latte, and little pale-brown footprints jauntily followed her for a few steps until all of the coffee had rubbed off onto the pavement, like she had stopped walking and flown into the sky, never to be seen again.

Once she was enclosed in the safety of her own apartment, she slammed her textbook down on the table. What was she so afraid of? Perhaps Marius just wanted to innocently catch up. She had recognized the name of his friend from their old group from high school. But they would inevitably have jumped to that night in the café, she decided. The last thing she needed was a reminder of everything that she had left.

A nagging question that she had asked in the week after their breakup wormed its way into her mind: would they have been married? She had been happy with him, of course. She had been happier than she ever remembered. Was it possible that in a few years, she would call him and say that she had been wrong? That she missed the predictability, the ease of always knowing what he was thinking, and the stability of having him always by her side?

Trying to calm herself, she pulled her raspberry candle out of one of her suitcases and grabbed a discarded box of matches, closing the door to her room. The little flame that sprung up when she dragged the match across the side of the box illuminated her expressionless face, and she pressed the sprightly fire to the wick of the candle, watching the wax burn down to the very end. So far, in fact, that it licked against her fingertips and she dropped it with a gasp, stomping it out on the floor and setting the candle on her bedside table.

She was ready to go to sleep, even though it was only late afternoon. Sleep would allow her to forget, if only for just a moment. But a pad of paper lying on her desk gave her an idea. With a black pen, she scribbled down a quick message and crumpled it, slipping it inside of the thick hollow glass lid of her candle. Sliding her window open, she stretched out as far as she could to gently roll the lid down to where it clicked against Eponine's windowsill. Just to make sure, she balled up another sheet and threw it at the window, quickly ducking back in.

She didn't have to wait long before there was the sound of a window sliding open, uncrumpling paper, and Eponine yelling up to the still open window:

"What the FUCK?"

**Please R/R!**


End file.
